‘What’s going on?’ I ask as Manfred returns.
‘What are you doing here?’ he says.
‘Just answer me.’
He looks at me as though I have said nothing.
‘We have to be in! We have to!’
I grip his shoulders and shake him.
‘Manfred, what the hell are you on about?’
He shoves me away, a flat hand against my chest, I stagger back and fall.
‘You’re drunk …’
‘So what?’
‘It’ll be a hare hunt like no other. Starting tomorrow. The area around Belize. Operation Hermann.’
‘An anti-partisan operation?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Goga’s a partisan, isn’t he? He must be in there somewhere, in the woods, yes? For God’s sake, Heinrich!’
He reaches out a hand and pulls me to my feet.
‘You’re going to have to convince Bach-Zelewski … that’s your job! We bypass Oscar and go straight to the top!’
‘Bach-Zewelski? The Polizeiführer? What makes you think he’ll see us?’
‘He’s in Ivenets. Come on.’
Hare hunt
Ivenets, a couple of hours east of Lida. The square in front of the little matchstick house of a town hall.
We wait to be admitted and present our case. Engines idling, more than two hundred vehicles split according to battle units, some 8,800 men, all of them under Curt von Gottberg’s command: Kampfgruppe Gottberg. Even Höherer Polizeiführer Bach-Zelewski, the most powerful man in the East regions, is here. They study their topographical maps and finalise Operation Hermann’s remaining details with the commanders of SS-Polizei-Regimenter 2 and 31, 1. SS-Infanterie-Brigade, the Latvians and the two Ukrainian SchuMa battalions, Dirlewanger’s Sonderbataillon.
Here in the sun Manfred wanders restlessly about with his hatbox. I sit on my briefcase with the file documents on Goga Bronstejns.
‘Are you ready?’ Manfred asks.
‘Yes, I’m ready.’
‘Why is it taking so long?’
‘I don’t know, Manfred.’
Operation Hermann, commencement tomorrow, 13 July. The Naliboki forests are to be hemmed in from the north, west and south, a triangle from Ivenets here to the fortified villages of Naliboki and Rubesjevitj; according to the SD the area contains the greatest concentration of partisans in the whole of Belorussia. The four phases of the anti-partisan strategy: (1) marching up and forming the cauldron; (2) tightening the cauldron, definition of the battle area; (3) clearing the cauldron, the last concentric attack; (4) mopping up. Problem: the Naliboki forests are not woodland, but puszcza – swamp, primeval land, wilderness, hills, underground bunkers, beavers and mosquitoes. And in the midst of it all the Neman river that keeps all of it wet and impenetrable and is the reason we cannot maintain Belorussia, a wetland of fetid yellow water punctuated only by occasional mounds, fortified Stützpunkte, guarded roads, secured railway lines, bridges, telephone lines, but all of it corroding and crumbling, and constantly bursting into forest.
Bach-Zelewski’s goal: to eliminate the partisan disorder in the Naliboki forests: Poles, Jews and Russians. Bach-Zelewski’s subsidiary goal: to secure provisions and slaves for the Reich. Manfred’s goal: to find Goga, perhaps to make an impression on Bach-Zelewski. My job: to convince Bach-Zelewski that the three goals can be combined.
‘It’s like the Greek exam in the Obersekunda,’ says Manfred. ‘Akylos and balanos in the Odyssey. Which is acorn and which is beech mast? It’s a lottery!’
‘Akylos is acorn—’
‘Oh, shut up, Heinrich! Do you think we’ll get in?’
‘I don’t know, Manfred.’
‘Do I look nervous?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then give me a cigarette!’
At Navahrudak Manfred had the head of Goga’s twin photographed in a dusty studio from the turn of the century by a doddering, obsequious old man with a sharply pointed moustache, left arm raised above the camera from under the black cloth. The mounted head was positioned on a Doric column of gypsum, some bulrushes in an elephant’s foot next to it, captured in a magnesium flash, a phosphorescent explosion of light. Manfred had thirty copies made.
The head is in its hatbox made of tin. The box has a metal handle, and Manfred keeps lifting the lid.
He does so now, just as an adjutant appears on the step and beckons us in.
_ _ _
‘You’ve got two minutes,’ says the adjutant before opening the door and showing us in to the staff meeting. He spreads a pair of fingers in the air: two.
The room is dim, I recognise Curt von Gottberg, operational commander, at the large chart table in the middle of the room, while others are unfamiliar to me. Dirlewanger glances up at us with no sign of recognition, then points a finger at the map, draws a line. Gottberg nods.
Bach-Zelewski must be the big man with his hands behind his back over by the window, surveying the square outside.
‘HSS-PF Bach-Zelewski …’ Manfred begins.
‘Who addresses me, Curt?’
The man at the window turns slightly towards Gottberg at the table, and now I recognise Bach-Zelewski from the newsreels: hair tightly cropped to the temples, the round glasses, the soft folds of his neck, the looseness of his face. He narrows his eyes myopically.
Manfred clears his throat and steps towards him:
‘Hauptsturmführer Schlosser …’
‘DO NOT ADDRESS ME!’ Bach-Zelewski bellows.
Manfred stops as abruptly as if he had received a slap in the face.
Gottberg lifts his head slowly.
‘Curt,’ Bach-Zelewski continues. ‘Who gave him permission to speak?’
‘He’s one of Steiner’s boys,’ says Gottberg. ‘He wants a command for Operation Hermann.’
‘A dick-licker looking for a new protector?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Gottberg goes on. ‘But he thinks Hubert’s killer is out there in the forests.’
‘Aha … Hubert, indeed,’ says Bach-Zelewski. ‘And what’s he got in the hatbox? Evidence?’
He has yet to look at us.
‘Tell him to show us what he’s got in his box,’ says Bach-Zelewski. His words trail off into sedate chomping.
‘May I?’ Manfred says, an inquiring nod towards Gottberg, who holds out his hand obligingly.
Manfred steps up to the table, opens the box and lifts out the head with both hands.
‘This is what he looks like,’ he says. ‘This is his twin brother, Elias. Our perpetrator goes under the name of Goga. Goga Bronstejns. Bronstejns with an s.’
No one speaks. Dirlewanger stares stiffly at the head,
